Starcrossed
by Applecup
Summary: The RED Medic found love in the last place he would have expected it. But then someone found out...


The RED Medic wasn't even sure of the first time he had encountered the BLU Heavy.

It had probably been on the battlefield; he had better things on his mind when in the midst of a fight, in truth, not least of which involved not being killed himself. A narrow second place was earned by keeping his teammates alive. Most things after that was incidental.

He knew by heart the first time he'd _met_ him, though.

He'd been hiding in a raised alcove in the sewers under the BLU base following a failed underground assault (the Scout had run on too far ahead for him to keep up, and the Soldier had fallen behind almost immediately), hoping to a God he wasn't sure he believed in any more that his damaged Medipak would still be able to heal him enough to be able to move before BLU saw fit to sweep the sewers for intruders.

Except that he'd heard a Heavy's distinctive, solid, regular footsteps, and that hope had been dashed.

They'd just stared at each other, at first – the wounded RED Medic, with nothing to his name but adrenaline, a faulty Übercannon, and a rusty bonesaw, and the BLU Heavy, with his personal minigun and the entire BLU team waiting above.

And then a voice had come from the direction of the BLU base.

"Heavy, lad, is there anyone down there?"

Heavy had just kept his gaze firmly on the injured Medic. "Nobody here, leetle man," he'd called back, "Is just fishes from river."

"Well get back up here, then," the reply had come, "Looks like their Medic has gone AWOL, so Solly wants ta push."

"Coming, comrade!"

Heavy had waited a moment, before taking a step towards Medic – who was too frightened to even scoot back against the wall.

"Doktor should not stay here," he'd said, keeping his voice low. "Get back to RED base, da?"

Medic had been too terrified to say anything in reply to that, and so had said nothing, just watched as the Heavy left and waited until he was sure he had gone and made it back to the RED base just in time to get an earful from their Soldier about cowardice and dereliction of duty.

He'd never quite understood why the BLU Heavy had let him go like that – the rest of the man's team would have killed the RED Medic without a second thought. Not that Medic was ungrateful for being allowed to live, but the thought had niggled at him for days which turned all too quickly into weeks and they had met, again, entirely by coincidence and Medic had asked him that question and the Heavy had answered not with words but with a soft, gentle kiss, and really that was the only answer that was needed.

They'd met often, after that, and not always by accident.

He knew it was a terrible idea, that one day RED or BLU or both of them would find out, and there would be hell to pay. Or one of the Spies would get lucky, or a Sniper would get a perfect shot, or–

–but for now, he had his Heavy, and in turn was had, and that – to them – was all that really mattered.

***

Medic knew the rest of his team's routines by heart; he had to, in order to conduct his illicit affair. They met secretly, they met at night, they met when everyone else was sleeping or drunk or both, and that night was one of those nights. RED had suffered badly in the day's skirmish, though nobody was dead, and there were no injuries that couldn't be dealt with by careful application of the Übercannon. After tending to his patients' physical wounds and making sure they were salving their bruised egos with alcohol, Medic made his move.

Slipping out of the base itself was one thing; making his way across the ground that separated the two bases was quite another. They were out in the middle of almost literally nowhere, with not much between them but rock, sand, a wide and almost stagnant river that seemed to be mostly fed by the sewers from each base that drained into it, and a roofed bridge over said river that seemed to be constantly being rebuilt or reinforced by one team or another at almost any given time because the opposing team's Pyro had tried to set the thing on fire. That particular day it had not fared too badly, however, the only major damage having been done to its roof on the BLU end after the BLU Pyro had managed to reflect an incoming grenade fired at them by the RED Demo.

There were spotlights illuminating the area between the two bases, as well – their positioning was perhaps not ideal for their purpose, but they threw off enough light that it made it difficult and time-consuming for anyone not in possession of a cloaking device to pass through unseen. Medic knew the area well, however, and had made the trek enough times he was confident he could make it across without being seen. He knew his own Sniper and Spy were amusing themselves with Scout, and BLU's Sniper was easy enough to avoid, as long as you kept an eye out for the telltale blue sight mark. There was still the risk of the BLU Spy being around, of course, but Medic trusted his Heavy enough to know that he would already have made certain that the BLU's own Frenchman was otherwise engaged.

With this in mind, Medic was able to quietly – if perhaps not as quickly as he might have liked – make his way to an empty building near the BLU base, where his Heavy was already waiting for him. It was an unused outdoor resupply building, or at least was from the look of it; not comfortable, by any stretch of the imagination, but out of the way enough that RED had never bothered to blow it up and BLU rarely bothered to use it. The unlikely pair had met there regularly, and never once been disturbed which while perhaps not the most practical of attitudes had been enough for the lovestruck pair.

The door was unlocked when Medic got there, and swung open easily, revealing the BLU Heavy, sat on one of the wooden benches, deep in thought. He looked up, startled, before standing up and hurrying over to Medic.

"Doktor," he began, as soon as he had reached the German, "I have–"

Medic silenced the Heavy by standing up on his toes and kissing the taller man on the lips, enjoying the taste and the smell of the other man, feeling his heart skip a beat as his Heavy pulled him closer, before the BLU sudden broke off the kiss.

"It is... gut to see you again, liebe," said Medic, unable to repress his smile.

"It is always good to see Doktor," Heavy replied, smiling in return – though there was a sadness in his eyes that unnerved Medic.

"Heavy? Is... everyzhing alright?"

Heavy didn't reply immediately, letting his right hand drop down to take the Medic's left, his smile fading.

"Doktor, I..." he trailed off, looking away, unable to meet Medic's gaze. Medic began to say something, but Heavy spoke up again. "Doktor, we cannot see each other any more. I think the rest of BLU team suspects."

Heavy paused again, swallowing, forcing himself to look Medic in the eye. "I'm sorry."

Medic became aware, after a moment, that his mouth was hanging open, the impact of Heavy's words not yet sunk in. Part of him screamed that this couldn't possibly be happening; that this was a trick, or that he'd misheard, or something, _anything_, but when he looked back up into his Heavy's eyes all he saw was the same, silent message.

"But..." Medic found himself lost for words, vaguely aware of his mouth moving without any intelligible sound coming out.

"Zhere must be some ozher vay," he managed, eventually, "Ve are alvays careful, und... und..."

"Nyet, Doktor," he said, sadly, "This is the only safe way. I am sorry, Doktor," he added, squeezing Medic's hand gently, "I do not want to hurt Doktor. I... I love you, Doktor. But if BLU or RED find out..."

Medic knew well what the punishment for treachery was. It was _supposed_ to be a mere packing off home with no pay and no pension; out here in the desert, however, it was all too easy for accidents to happen when you were in the vicinity of angry, betrayed teammates with both easy access to firearms, and superiors who didn't care much _what_ went on in the bases so long as they got results.

"I... see." Medic managed, eventually. He extracted himself from the Heavy's embrace, taking a step backwards, shaking a little – and not just because of the cold night air.

A long, unpleasant silence passed between them, the Heavy starting several times to try and say something, before thinking better of it. Eventually, however, the Russian man broke the silence.

"Doktor should not stay out here," he said, keeping his voice low. "It is not safe."

Medic drew himself up, a stern expression settling on his face. "You are probably correct." He hesitated a moment, adding, "Auf Wiedersehen, Heavy."

Before Heavy could respond he turned and left, making his way back to the RED base – so caught up in himself he didn't even notice the smell of cigarette smoke from the shadows outside the door, or the dusty boot prints just inside it.

***

The next day began as a quiet one, for which Medic was extremely grateful.

He skipped breakfast, not really wanting to face his comrades-in-arms, and spent the day at his desk in the infirmary, trying to focus on the pages of a medical journal and instead finding himself going through the events of the previous night in his head over and over again.

He only left when, in the early afternoon, the Soldier burst in and announced that everyone was required in the War Room for a briefing. Not having the energy to argue, Medic had accompanied him, fully anticipating that he would not be expected to pay a large amount of attention – Soldier's battle plans consisted mostly of incoherent screaming and a hodge-podge of half-remembered tactics the man had likely picked up from watching too many war movies.

Unfortunately, he was not correct in this assumption.

"Boys, we have a traitor in our midst!"

Soldier stood at the head of the table – not seated, but instead standing directly behind the chair and gripping it with both hands, his knuckles turning white. The rest of the team were sat around the table, meticulously avoiding both his gaze and each other's.

Soldier remained silent for a moment, apparently trying to gauge the reaction of his team members, before continuing to speak.

"Last night, while you _ladies_ were styling your hair and painting each other's toenails, I was patrolling the outskirts of the base and what did I see?"

Medic felt his stomach lurch as he tried desperately to remember if he'd seen Soldier outside the previous night. He'd been with the others when Medic had left, yes, but now that he thought about it he wasn't sure the American man had _been_ drinking so much as shouting at the others _for_ drinking and had now begun pacing around the table and smiling wickedly, which was not helping in the least.

"I'll tell you what I saw," Soldier said, almost spitting, "A damn dirty _traitor_, engaging in conversation with the enemy! Selling out our fine Company!"

Soldier slammed a hand down on the table where Scout was sitting, making the boy jump.

"Hey, don't look at me, man," Scout said, suddenly flustered, "I was with you guys all the time! Right?"

Soldier snorted, withdrawing his hand and continuing his pace around the table.

"Tell me something," Spy said, "Do you actually 'ave any proof that one of us is a BLU Spy? Or are you making baseless accusations again?"

Soldier chuckled to himself in a faintly menacing manner.

"Funny you should say that, private," he said, bringing his pacing to a stop behind the chair Medic was sat at. "I distinctly do not remember saying that any one of you was a Spy." He slammed one hand down on Medic's shoulder, making the German man wince. "Did I say that, _Medic_?"

"Nein, Herr Soldat," Medic said, trying to shrug the hand off, and failing, "You did not."

"As for proof," Soldier added, giving Medic's shoulder a hard squeeze, before removing his grip, "I only have what I saw with my own two eyes! One of our very own! That spineless maggot wouldn't even show his face and hid in the shadows, but I saw him all the same!"

Scout, apparently not content with only having been shouted at once so far, spoke up again. "Solly, if ya didn't even see 'im properly, how'd ya kno-"

"_Did I give you permission to speak, private?_"

Scout went almost white, and tried to shrink back into his chair. He didn't say anything in reply, just stared at Soldier, eyes wide with fear. This, however, did nothing to appease the Soldier.

"Private, I asked you a _question_! Did I, or did I not, give you permission to speak?"

"....N-n... No?" he managed, eventually.

"No _what_?"

"Nosir!" Scout blurted out, apparently now regretting having spoken up.

Soldier snorted in response to that, drawing himself up to his full height, but was apparently satisfied with the boy's answer.

"Medic!" he shouted, making the German man almost jump. "You Krauts are sticklers for _rules_ and _orders_," he said, making them sound almost like epithets. "So tell us: what would the punishment be for betraying the Company?"

Medic felt his mouth go dry and he swallowed hard, forcing himself to speak. "It vould result in termination of zhe individual's contract."

Soldier patted him on the shoulder a little harder than he really needed to, before walking back to the head of the table, leaning on the back of the chair in the same way as he had been at the start of this so-called briefing. "Ex_actly!_" he said, grinning in an extremely unpleasant fashion. "Termination of _the contract_."

"I don't think," Soldier added, speaking deliberately slowly, "I need to explain what that means."

There was a tense, awful silence as Soldier glared at the rest of the RED team, all of whom were studiously avoiding each other's gazes.

"I'm keeping my eye on you. _All_ of you." Soldier said, eventually, before adding an emphatic "Dis_missed_!"

None of them needed to be told twice.

***

Medic had disappeared back into the infirmary after that, staring at the same page in the same medical journal that he had been before the meeting and obsessing over the warning Soldier had just given him until lights-out, when he'd slipped into his quarters and hoped nobody would comment on his absence at the evening meal. He forced himself to attend breakfast the next morning, though, mostly because his stomach was almost unbearably empty, and found himself extremely glad that he did – the Administration had apparently decided they were to attack again that day. Medic wasn't sure he wanted to go into battle, but had little say in the matter – an order to attack was an order to attack, and after the previous day's fit of entirely justified paranoia on the part of their Soldier, the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself.

A tiny part of him did hope to see his Heavy, if only to assure himself that nothing had happened to the man. He didn't see anything, however, and this only made him worry more, and he was having trouble focusing on the situation as it was. Without even being entirely sure how it had happened, he found himself, once again, at the front lines – on the BLU side of the river, not far from the bridge, trying to keep their Pyro and Soldier alive, despite the dirty looks the latter of the two kept giving him. Things were going smoothly – or at least, as smoothly as they ever seemed to go for RED – until their Scout came tearing out of the BLU base like a bat out of hell, screaming something incoherent before leaping onto the roof of the bridge and making a dash for home, leaving only the smell of slightly singed flesh behind him. Medic had no idea what to make of this until two members of BLU came barrelling after him – the BLU Pyro and, with him, their Medic, both surrounded in the ethereal glow of an overcharged Übercannon.

The RED Pyro turned and fled and Medic, not especially fancying being burned alive, began to follow him but their Soldier had other ideas and charged, firing a volley of rockets which exploded harmlessly when they reached the pair. The BLU Pyro laughed manically and began charging towards the Soldier, his flamethrower fully lit. Medic, who as much as he disliked the Soldier had no wish to see him burned alive, rushed forward to try and help the man, but the Pyro spotted this and changed his target from the Soldier to _him_. For a split second Medic was convinced he was about to die a horribly, firey death but he was instead hit by a strong blast of air from the flamethrower, throwing him back onto the bridge where he landed, rather gracelessly, flat on his back.

Medic tried pulling himself up quickly, only to be thrown to the floor again as a explosion from the RED side rocked the bridge, throwing up dust and dry wood. He pulled himself to his feet again, looking back towards his base and seeing through the settling dust that the explosion had taken out much of the centre of the bridge – certainly too much to consider jumping it. Whipping his head back around towards the BLU base, he could see Soldier trying to distract the BLU Medic with repeated application of his shovel, and between them the BLU Medic and Pyro – the latter of whom was advancing on Medic and laughing in a particular wicked way. Medic, long a fan of the notion that not dying was the better part of valour, threw himself off the rickety bridge and into the river below, which he immediately regretted. It was better than being set on fire, true, but the water was filthy and stank to high heaven and, now, so did he – and, adding insult to injury, his glasses had come off in the explosion, so he couldn't even see properly.

He briefly considered ducking under the bridge and hoping nobody had the presence of mind to shoot down here, but the sound of shotgun fire coming his way from above made him rethink this and he moved as quickly as he could, realising that he needed to find cover – fast. Without even thinking about it, he swam towards the nearest bank and pulled himself into the sewer entrance set into it, fleeing into the underground tunnels and, he hoped out of the range of his attacker.

Once he was certain he was no longer in immediate danger he stopped, leaning against the sewer wall and trying to catch his breath, grateful that the water here was shallower than in the river. His uniform, though, was already soaked; it was not the lightest set of clothing at the best of times, and the extra weight from the water was not helping. He knew he needed to get back to his team quickly – they would in trouble without him, even unable to see clearly or move quickly as he was.

From further into the sewers, he could hear footsteps moving through the water – the slow, regular footfalls of a Heavy, and immediately assumed that their Heavy had come down here to meet him after his less-than-heroic leap into the water. Not being a fast mover, the RED Heavy had a tendency to stay away from the front lines, both because of his slow speed and the fact that Soldier hated it when Medic focused his healing on the RED Heavy – if only because the man not only rarely hit moving targets with his minigun but usually managed to miss stationary ones as well. Medic suddenly found himself comparing the RED Heavy unfavourably to the BLU one and tried to push the thought out his mind, adjusting his Übercannon and trying to ignore the squelching feeling in his boots.

Something about these sewers seemed... unfamiliar, though. He tried to put it down to his poor vision – though he could see well enough to perform his duties with the Übercannon, he'd be hard pushed to accurately fire his Blutsauger and would certainly need his spare pair of glasses for performing any surgeries – but something just seemed... _off_.

And then he saw the colour of the Company logos spray-painted onto the side walls of the sewer and realised where he was, why the shotgun blasts had been aimed where they had, and who the footfalls belonged to.

_Scheiße._

"Doktor?!"

Even if he hadn't seen the man as he rounded the bend in the sewer, Medic would have recognised his Heavy's voice. The look of surprise on the man's face suggested that he hadn't expected to see the Medic there, though the fact that his Heavy was there at all confirmed the theory he'd formed that this had been a trap laid by BLU. Whether this was sadistic setup on the part of someone who'd found out more than either the Medic or his Heavy had intended or not was irrelevant – he was here, now, and they were both going to have to come up with a way quickly to get out of this without getting shot – either by each other, or their respective Companies.

Medic was still groping for something to respond with, however, he heard another voice, this one from the direction of the river – possibly the worst voice he could have heard at that moment.

"_Medic!_"

The RED Soldier was approaching from behind him, also soaking wet, and having apparently misplaced all of his weaponry save for his shovel – which he was wielding in an extremely menacing manner. He looked for a moment like he was about to start chewing Medic out for not wanting to get set on fire – and then he spotted the Heavy.

"Well, well, well," the RED Soldier said, almost snarling, "Look what we have here. You and your little BLU buddies plan this thing out together? This was the whole idea," he added, jabbing an accusing finger at Medic, "Lure me an' Pyro away from the others to leave them as easy pickings for BLU! You _disgust_ me!"

"Vait," Medic started to say, raising his arms in an attempt at a pacifying gesture, "I can explain-"

Before he could get any further, Soldier roared and took a swing at him with the shovel, connecting solidly with his head and for a moment the RED Medic's world went dark, illuminated only by brilliant, dancing spots of light before the everything swam back into his vision and above the almost deafening ringing in his ears he could hear the Soldier screaming and his Heavy screaming and he saw the shovel crashing down towards him again and –

– and then, everything went black.

***

When Medic came to, the first things he was aware of was the smell of antiseptic, the sensation of rough hospital garb on his body and cold air on his bare hands, the pressure of the straps holding him to a hard bed, and the sound of people near him, talking.

"Are you trying to tell me," a voice was saying – an American man's voice, which sounded as though it was somewhere between disbelief and barely contained rage – "that you were _fraternizing with the enemy_?"

"Da," a second voice replied, after an uncomfortable moment, and Medic realised that it wasn't just any voice but a Heavy's – _his_ Heavy, in fact. "But not for long. I tell Doktor we cannot see each other. I... did not want to hurt BLU."

"So what were you doing down in the sewers together?"

"Is... coincidence. I was getting ready with Ludmila when Doktor appeared. I think he was surprised to see me, too. Then RED Soldier followed him in, and..."

Heavy trailed off, sounding a little sad.

"Vell," a third voice said, "Zat explains vhy zhe RED Soldat attacked zhe Medic. He must haff seen you togezher und assumed zhe vurst."

Medic forced his eyes open, wincing a little at the light. Even once his eyes adjusted, he couldn't see very well – but he could make out his Heavy sitting on a chair nearby, with the BLU Medic and Soldier standing next to him.

Heavy seemed almost despondent; he didn't have anything much to say in response to this theory, and seemed about to make a defeated sort of noncommittal grunt when he spotted the RED Medic.

"Doktor!"

Both the BLU Medic and the Soldier started at this, both immediately looking over at the captured RED.

"So _you're_ the RED Medic?" The first speaker, apparently the BLU Soldier, approached the bed Medic was strapped to. "The one who's been trying to coax secrets out of our Heavy?"

The BLU Soldier seemed to have a kinder look about him than his colleague over on RED. Yes, they were here to fight a war, and that did involve a certain amount of ungentlemanly behaviour, but something about him made Medic pretty certain that this one probably wasn't going to try and bash his head in with a shovel in the immediate future (mostly, it had to be noted, the fact that he was not carrying one).

"...Nein," Medic managed, after a moment, "It vas nozhing like zhat. Ve vere... schtupid, perhaps. But... dein Heavy vould never haff betrayed BLU. Und I vould not haff asked him to."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, during which the BLUs exchanged dark looks. The BLU Medic was looking at his RED counterpart like something he'd just scraped from the bottom of his shoe; the Soldier's expression was hard-set, almost angry, and his Heavy was just wearing a desperate, almost _pleading_ look.

"Well, now," the Soldier said, glaring down at the RED Medic, "We need to decide what to do with you... don't we?"

He threw the Heavy a dark look, adding, "Something tells me that my Russian friend over here isn't going to be too pleased if we have you executed."

"Ve could ransom him back to RED," said the BLU Medic. "Zheir precious Intelligence is surely less important zhan zhe life of zheir Medic?"

Medic felt the bottom drop out of his stomach at the mere thought of going back to RED. They would no doubt shoot him on the spot – he doubted that Soldier would have refrained from telling them all in great, exaggerated detail about the encounter in the sewers. The BLU Soldier seemed to pick up on this and chuckled to himself, causing the BLU Medic to roll his eyes.

There was a horrible silence for a moment, before the Heavy spoke up.

"There is also third option."

Nobody said anything; Heavy took this as his cue to keep talking.

"Doktor could stay here. Become BLU."

"Ve already _haff_ ein Medic," snapped the BLU Medic, apparently suddenly afraid of being made redundant.

"So we have two Doktors," said Heavy, shrugging, "Is less work for you. Make it easier to crush RED."

Soldier chuckled again. He was doing that a lot, and it unnerved Medic – both of them, judging by the way the BLU doctor twitched.

"You know, he's right, Doc," the Soldier said, "We could always use an auxiliary Medic." He turned his attention to the captured RED. "What do you say?"

Medic hesitated, trying to think fast and finding his mind had gone almost completely blank. He didn't have any particular love for the RED team, and he imagined they probably felt the same way about him – especially after recent events. Refusing BLU's offer could be dangerous – and only _just_ less so than making his way back to his own team. And, well, the hopeful look that his Heavy was giving him, the thought of being able to be with him again, and without having to sneak around, and...

"I haff... personal effects in mein bunks in ze RED base," he said, weakly, before starting to add, "Mein glasses, und-"

"Don't you worry about that, son," the Soldier said, waving one hand dismissively, "I'll have our Spy pick 'em up for you next time he's over there. Assuming you take advantage of my generous offer, of course."

Medic glanced over at his Heavy, whose face was a very picture of cautious, desperate hope. The man was so transparent, Medic reflected, that it was a miracle their affair had not been discovered earlier.

"...If zhe League vill haff me, zhen... I vould be honoured."

The BLU Soldier laughed at that. "You let me worry about that, son. You, uh... may want to keep your head down for a while, though. Those RED maggots aren't going to take this kindly."

Medic glanced across at his Heavy, who was grinning like an idiot; standing over him, the other BLU Medic just rolled his eyes and made a disapproving noise.

"Come on, you," the Soldier added, addressing the Heavy, "we've got work to do," and patted him firmly on one shoulder, bringing him crashing back to reality.

"Good work, there, Private," he was saying, "Taking out their Soldier _and_ their Medic without getting so much as a scratch! I'm proud of you, son! Pity Demo didn't blow it sooner," he added, "Or we coulda had their Pyro as well."

Heavy looked back down at the RED Medic's corpse, which was lying in a crumpled heap in the slowly reddening water of the BLU sewers, the RED doctor's uniform soaked not just with sewer water but with the blood which had been streaming from the wounds in his head. Heavy couldn't help but feel utterly useless; the one time when his Doktor had needed him the most, and he'd failed him. The RED Soldier who'd attacked them was equally dead, his jaw shattered and neck broken from the force of a punch to the head from the angered Russian, but that wouldn't bring back his beloved Doktor. Even knowing first aid wouldn't have helped him; the head wounds were too bad, and trying to convince the BLU Medic to use his Übercannon on the RED Doktor would only result in the Heavy's loyalty to the Company being brought under terminal scrutiny. Whatever move he made, he would always lose everything.

"Better make a move topside, Private," Soldier added, "We gotta strike while the iron's hot! Push 'em back and crush RED once and for all!"

Heavy took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. If RED were on the run, then it wouldn't be long before he could... before he could be alone.

"You go ahead," he managed, hoping his accent masked the shaking in his voice. "I will follow."

The Soldier nodded and barked a reply Heavy didn't pay attention to before leaving towards the main base. Heavy picked up his gun and began to follow, trudging through the sewers back up to his base, only turning to look back when the Soldier was far enough ahead that he wouldn't be able to see him.

_Do svidaniya, Doktor._


End file.
